Baldy

Chris has had some time off work.  Not to go anywhere, just to use up vacation days.  After the first day or so beyond the length of time he would normally be home, it becomes a little awkward.  It's like we're in some sort of family time capsule where there is no day of the week. "Today is Monday? No, wait, it's Tuesday."  We start to overlap each other on duties and then end up not doing them at all.  "Did you give Louie his medicine this morning?"  No.  The answer is no.  No one gave him his medicine. It's similar to those dreams you have where you wonder if maybe it wasn't a dream at all because it was so normal. Like a dream about running errands, getting your oil changed,  going to the cleaners.  

This time with Chris lurking around the house begins in a haze of confusion but ends with that day-after-Christmas feeling when he goes back. We finally get in the flow and start operating as a team; one of us cooks while the other bathes the boys;  Chris folds the laundry and I put it away; I clean up the toys while Chris pours Louie's milk; we go out to lunch; play in the backyard.  We're grooving.  A finely-oiled family machine.  Conversation increases in both frequency and quality. We have time to discuss the nuances of day beds versus pullout couches. I tell him about a woman I overheard talking loudly on her cell phone in Target about how her insurance won't cover her hysterectomy (is nothing private? Nothing?).  Anyway, point is, we have had a lot more time for both meaningful and silly conversation.  It's been nice.  

During one of his days off he got a haircut.  The salon is fairly open so the customers and stylists are all crammed together.  A fifteen-year-old with hair to her waist sat next to him with two or three stylists working together to try to comb out the massive head of  hair.  Chris commented "Looks like you've got some dreads going on there."  She looked at him and said "Whatever, baldy."  As in "You are a balding-thirty-something-man who needs to mind his own business."  Poor Chris.  As if this isn't something he already worries about.  

And so this sparks a conversation between us about the insults we endured as kids.  "Kids called me egghead...man, that stuff sticks with you, " he tells me.  I try to relate but have a hard time.  Either I've completely blocked it all out or it didn't happen to me.  Not because I was super popular or anything but just because my school was small, redneck, rural and poor and we were all pretty much in the same boat.  The only thing I can recall is in middle school when my friends made fun of me because my butt wiggled when I walked.  So I tried my best to walk so that my butt would not move at all.  Difficult.  Very, very difficult.  "Is that all you got?  I've been hearing about that butt thing for years."  It's all I got.  Sorry.  

Which led us to the "I want to keep my child locked in his room forever" conversation.  Every parent has had this thought at one time or another.   This feeling, this innate quality we have as parents, is full of so much pain and so much pure and simple love.  Protection.  We want to protect them from the hurt that we experienced.  From the hurt that we know they may experience because of the way they walk, the clothes they wear - or don't, the shape of their beautiful, oblong head.  Kids can be mean to one another.  They pick out the most permanent detail to exploit, the detail the child can't change like the color of their skin, the way they talk, the size of their nose.  

But I try to tell myself and Chris, that there are also the children who are kind.  Who you lie next to at sleep-overs and giggle until the sun rises.  There are the kids who share their lunch, who help you with math problems, who hold you tightly when your first love breaks your heart. And who wants to miss out on those kids? 

Chris goes back to work tomorrow.  He's out fishing now.  Enjoying the sunset, calm waters and the first fireflies of the year.  He needs that time.  That perspective.  That space.  We all do.  But I would speculate that he doesn't put it all out of his mind.  That as he casts his rod into the smooth lake water he wonders how he can protect his boys while letting them go at the same time.